• 2 Posts
  • 21 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 17th, 2023

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  • One of my most “this isn’t what it looks like” moments? Picture this: it’s dark, I’m in the campus parking lot, and I’m standing next to my truck with a crowbar, trying to break off a locking gas cap. Earlier that day, I’d discovered the lock was stuck and just spun uselessly when I tried to get gas.

    For context, I’d bought the locking cap because of a recent string of gas thefts on campus (including from my own truck), so yeah—ironic. Just as I’m mid-pry, campus security pulled up. It looked exactly as bad as you’d imagine. They actually didn’t give me any trouble at all. They asked what I was doing and then went on their way. I suspect it was because I didn’t have any type of fuel container or siphoning gear, I also hadn’t tried to hide what I was doing.

    So a little anticlimactic as these types of stories go, but I was relieved when they drove off and the mangled gas cap finally popped off.



  • I use Emby and catalog my music using MusicBrainz Picard. Before Emby I used Ampache but I want to serve up as much of my media through the same interface as possible. Adding all the proper metadata and sorting the music can be time consuming, but it makes all the difference in serving up the music properly. Music is much more varied than Movies or even TV so it is a bit more difficult to get right and there are sooo many artists. MusicBrainz Picard makes it pretty easy though. I will be checking out Beets.io after reading this thread to see if it can help any more with organizing my library.



  • Looney Tunes - Back in Action for the PlayStation 2. There is this jump that Daffy has to do between two pillars that is driving me crazy. The two pillars have buttons on them that Bugs and Daffy have to stand on to open a door. Getting to the top of the pillars is pretty easy now, but takes some amount of time and you have to fight with the camera. When Daffy makes contact with the second pillar he always jumps off because I don’t stop his “flight” in time.


  • I have an inline duct booster fan with a control. I would recommend just putting one in your existing HVAC duct that runs upstairs. Also, if you don’t already, use your HVAC fan on “On” rather than “Auto” whenever there is an unwanted temperature differential. Overall I don’t think your idea about repurposing the chimney with additional duct work to move air is a bad idea. Especially given your description that multiple renovations have been done and perhaps a holistic approach to the HVAC system wasn’t taken. Our HVAC contractor re-routed our gas furnace’s exhaust gasses that had been going from the basement all the way through all the floors to the attack, the newer model just goes out the wall in the basement. The old exhaust was used to add a return from the upper floor to the basement. And of course, always check that you have more than enough insulation.


  • I did a radiant barrier on my rafters to guide heat up from the soffits to the ridge vent and then insulated the joists. Blown in insulation is pretty cheap. While doing other work I also insulated my southern facing garage wall and of course insulated the garage door (and sealed the edges). This made a noticeable difference in the temperature of the garage. I can turn a couple of fans on in the garage and leave the door to the house open and achieve a very reasonable temperature in the garage if I plan on being in there for a length of time. This helps in both summer and winter.




  • Milk Shakes at just about any fast food restaurants. The machines always seem to be down! Pulled up to an Arby’s a few months back to order a Jamoca shake and they said their machine was down. I asked them if I had pulled into the McDonald’s drive through by mistake. We all had a big laugh… but that was months ago and they have now put a sticker on the menu that says their shakes are not currently available :(

    Went to a Baskin Robins to order a Chocolate Milk shake and they were out of Chocolate ice cream… on multiple occasions. At least they don’t have a machine to break down!



  • pdavis@lemmy.worldtoSelfhosted@lemmy.worldNetworking Dilemma
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    5 months ago

    I installed cable in a couple of apartments I rented. I just made it look professional and nothing was ever said about it. In one apartment town home I even had access to the attic and was able to run cable in the walls. I did have to drill through the floor and door headers in some instances, but it can be done.








  • After looking at other’s lists I think I am missing a good document server. Emby isn’t the best music and photo server so I could look at improving that, but it has been good enough for those purposes that I haven’t felt like going to the trouble of installing anything else.

    • Aster: Multiseat software for Windows allows several users to work on the same PC.
    • LaunchBox: Frontend for DOSBox, modern PC games and emulated console platforms.
    • Blue Iris: Video security and webcam software
    • Calibre: E-Book management and server
    • Emby: Server for videos, music, audio books, and photos.
    • Firewalla: VPN server, internet monitor and control
    • Foundary Virtual Tabletop: Online role-playing game server.
    • Grafana: Dashboard interface
    • Hubitat: Home automation
    • Hyper-V Manager: Tool that allows users to manage Hyper-V hosts and virtual machines (VMs)
    • InfluxDB: Real-time database server.
    • IotaWatt: Open WiFi electric power monitor
    • Microsoft SQL Server: Database Server
    • Octoprint: Web interface for 3D printers.
    • PCem: Emulator for various old 8086 through Pentium PCs.
    • SmartSync Pro: File sync program
    • SnapRaid: Backup program for disk arrays.
    • Stablebit DrivePool/Scanner: Disk pooling, file duplication, protection, disk surface scanner, and disk health monitoring
    • Steam Link: Access and play steam games remotely